Casper communed with himself, and decided that he was not frightened.
He

was eager and alert; he thought that now his obligation to his
country, or

himself, was to be faced, and he was mad to prove to old Reilly
and the

others that after all he was a very capable soldier.

III

Old Reilly was stumping along the line of his brigade and
mumbling like

a man with a mouthful of grass. The fire from the enemy's position
was

incredible in its swift fury, and Reilly's brigade was setting
its share of

a very bad ordeal. The old man's face was of the colour of a tomato,
and in

his rage he mouthed and sputtered strangely. As he pranced along
his thin

line, scornfully erect, voices arose from the grass beseeching
him to take

care of himself. At his heels scrambled a bugler, with pallid
skin and

clenched teeth, a chalky trembling youth, who kept his eye on
old Reilly's

back and followed it.

The old gentleman was quite mad. Apparently he thought the
whole thing a

dreadful mess; but now that his brigade was irrevocably in it,
he was full

tilting here and everywhere to establish some irreproachable immaculate
kind

of behaviour on the part of every man-jack in his brigade. The
intentions of

the three venerable colonels were the same. They stood behind
their lines,

quiet, stern, courteous, old fellows, admonishing their regiments
to be very

pretty in the face of such a hail of magazine-rifle and machine-gun
fire as

has never in this world been fronted, save by the beardless savages
when the

white man has found occasion to take his burden to some new place.

And the regiments were pretty. The men lay on their little
stomachs and

got peppered according to the law, and said nothing as the good
blood pumped

out into the grass; and even if a solitaryrookie tried to get
a decent reason to move to some haven of rational men, the cold
voice of an officer made him look criminal with a shame that was
a credit to his regimental education. Behind Reilly's command
was a

bullet-torn jungle, through which it could not move as a brigade;
ahead of

it were Spanish trenches on hills. Reilly considered that he was
in a fix,

no doubt, but he said this only to himself. Suddenly he saw on
the right a

little point of blue-shirted men already halfway up the hill.
It was some

pathetic fragment of the 6th United States Infantry. Chagrined,
shocked,

horrified, Reilly bellowed to his bugler, and the chalk-faced
youth unlocked

his teeth and sounded the charge by rushes. The men formed hastily
and

grimly, and rushed. Apparently there awaited them only the fate
of

respectable soldiers. But they went because of the opinions of
the others,

perhaps. They went because no low-down, loud-mouthed, pie-faced
lot of

jail-birds, such as the 27th Infantry, could do anything that
they could not

do better. They went because Reilly ordered it. They went because
they went.

And yet not a man of them to this day has made a public speech
explaining

precisely how he did the whole thing, and detailing with what
initiative and

ability he comprehended and defeated a situation which he did
not comprehend

at all.

Reilly never saw the top of the hill. He was heroically striving
to keep

up with his men when a bullet ripped quietly through his left
lung, and he

fell back into the arms of the bugler, who received him as he
would have

received a Christmas present. The three venerable colonels inherited
the

brigade in swift succession. The senior commanded for about fifty
seconds,

at the end of which he was mortally shot. The junior colonel ultimately

arrived with a lean and puffing little brigade at the top of the
hill. The

men lay down and fired volleys at whatever was practicable.

In and out of the ditch-like trenches lay the Spanish dead,
lemon-faced

corpses dressed in shabby blue-and-white ticking. Some were huddled
down

comfortably, like sleeping children; one had died in the attitude
of a man

flung back in a dentist's chair; one sat in the trench with its
chin sunk

despondently to its breast; few preserved a record of the agitation
of

battle. With the greater number it was as if death had touched
them so

gently, so lightly, that they had not known of it. Death had

come to them more in the form of an opiate than of a bloody blow.

But the arrived men in the blue shirts had no thought of the
sallow

corpses. They were eagerly exchanging a hail of shots with the
Spanish

second line, whose ash-coloured entrenchments barred the way to
a city white

amid trees. In the pauses the men talked.

'We done the best. Old E company got there. Why, one time the
hull of P

company was behind us. Hell!'

'Jones, he was the first man up. I saw 'im.'

'Which Jones?'

'Did you see ol' Two-bars runnin' like a land crab? Made good
time, too.

He hit only in the high places. He's all right.'

'The lootenant is all right, too. He was a good ten yards ahead
of the

best of us. I hated him at the post, but for this here active
service

there's none of 'em can touch him.'

'This is mighty different from being at the post.'

'Well, we done it, an' it wasn't b'cause I thought it could
be done. When

again to the War Department and see if they've heard anything
about Casper.'

A very bright-eyed hatchet-faced young man appeared in a doorway,
pen

still in hand. He was hiding a nettle-like irritation behind all
the

finished audacity of a smirk, sharp, lying, trustworthy young
politician.

'I've just got back from there, sir,' he suggested.

The Skowmulligan war-horse lifted his eyes and looked for a
short second

into the eyes of his private secretary. It was not a glare or
an eagle

glance; it was something beyond the practice of an actor; it was
simply

meaning. The clever private secretary grabbed his hat and was
at once

enthusiastically away. 'All right, sir,' he cried, 'I'll find
out.'

The War Department was ablaze with light, and messengers were
running.

With the assurance of a retainer of an old house, Baker made his
way through

much small-calibre vociferation. There was rumour of a big victory;
there

was rumour of a big defeat. In the corridors various watch-dogs
arose from

their armchairs and asked him of his business in tones of uncertainty,
which

in no wise compared with their previous habitual deference to
the private

secretary of the war-horse of Skowmulligan.

Ultimately Baker arrived in a room where some kind of a head-clerk
sat

feverishly writing at a roller-topped desk. Baker asked a question,
and the

head-clerk mumbled profanely without lifting his head. Apparently
he said,

'How in the blankety-blank blazes do I know?'

The private secretary let his jaw fall. Surely some new spirit
had come

suddenly upon the heart of Washington, a spirit which Baker understood
to be

almost defiantly indifferent to the wishes of Senator Cadogan,
a spirit

which was not even courteously oily. What could it mean? Baker's
fox-like mind sprang wildly to a conception of overturned factions,
changed friends, new combinations. The assurance which had come
from a broad political situation suddenly left him, and he could
not have been amazed if some one had told him that Senator Cadogan
now

controlled only six votes in the State of Skowmulligan. 'Well,'
he stammered

in his bewilderment, 'well -- there isn't any news of the old
man's son,

hey?' Again the head-clerk replied blasphemously.

Eventually Baker retreated in disorder from the presence of
this

head-clerk, having learned that the latter did not give a -- --
if Casper

Cadogan was sailing through Hades on an ice-yacht.

Baker assailed other and more formidable officials. In fact,
he struck as

high as he dared. They, one and all, flung him short hard words,
even as men

pelt an annoying cur with pebbles. He emerged from the brilliant
light, from

the groups of men with anxious puzzled faces, and as he walked
back to the

hotel, he did not know if his name was Baker or Cholmondeley.

However, as he walked up the stairs to the senator's rooms,
he continued

to concentrate his intellect upon a manner of speaking.

The war-horse was still pacing his parlour and smoking. He
paused at

Baker's entrance. 'Well?'

'Mr. Cadogan,' said the private secretary coolly, 'they told
me at the

department that they did not give a gawd dam whether your son
was alive or

dead.'

The senator looked at Baker and smiled gently. 'What's that,
my boy?' he

asked in a soft and considerate voice.

'They said -- ' gulped Baker with a certain tenacity. 'They
said that

they didn't give a gawd dam whether your son was alive or dead.'

There was a silence for the space of three seconds. Baker stood
like an

image; he had no machinery for balancing the issues of this kind
of a

situation, and he seemed to feel that if he stood as still as
a stone frog

he would escape the ravages of a terrible senatorial wrath which
was about

to break forth in a hurricane speech which would snap off trees
and sweep

away barns.

'Well,' drawled the senator lazily, 'who did you see, Baker?'

The private secretary resumed a certain usual manner of breathing.
He

told the names of the men whom he had seen.

'Ye-e-es,' remarked the senator. He took another little

brown cigar and held it with a thumb and first finger, staring
at it with

the calm and steady scrutiny of a scientist investigating a new
thing. 'So

they don't care whether Casper is alive or dead, eh? Well -- maybe
they

don't. That's all right. However, I think I'll just look in on
'em and state

my views.'

When the senator had gone, the private secretary ran to the
window and

leaned far out. Pennsylvania Avenue was gleaming silver blue in
the light of

many arc-lamps; the cable trains groaned along to the clangour
of gongs;

from the window the walks presented a hardly diversified aspect
of

shirt-waists and straw hats; sometimes a newsboy screeched.

Baker watched the tall heavy figure of the senator moving out
to

intercept a cable train. 'Great Scot!' cried the private secretary
to

himself, 'there'll be three distinct kinds of grand, plain, practical

fireworks. The old man is going for 'em. I wouldn't be in Lascum's
boots. Ye

gods, what a row there'll be!'

In due time the senator was closeted with some kind of deputy

third-assistant battery-horse in the offices of the War Department.
The

official obviously had been told off to make a supreme effort
to pacify

Cadogan, and he certainly was acting according to his instructions.
He was

almost in tears; he spread out his hands in supplication, and
his voice

whined and wheedled. 'Why, really, you know, senator, we can only
beg you to

look at the circumstances. Two scant divisions at the top of that
hill; over

a thousand men killed and wounded; the lines so thin that any
strong attack

would smash our army to flinders. The Spaniards have probably
received

reinforcements under Pando; Shafter seems to be too ill to be
actively in

command of our troops; Lawton can't get up with his division before

to-morrow. We are actually expecting -- no, I won't say expecting
-- but we

would not be surprised -- nobody in the department would be surprised
if,

before daybreak, we were compelled to give to the country the
news of a

disaster, which would be the worst blow the national pride has
ever

suffered. Don't you see? Can't you see our position, senator?'

The senator, with a pale but composed face, contemplated the
official

with eyes that gleamed in a way not usual with the big self-controlled

politician.

'I'll tell you frankly, sir,' continued the other. 'I'll tell
you frankly

that at this moment we don't know whether we are a-foot or a-horseback.

Everything is in the air. We don't know whether we have won a
glorious victory or simply got ourselves in a devil of a fix.'

The senator coughed. 'I suppose my boy is with the two divisions
at the

top of that hill? He's with Reilly.'

'Yes; Reilly's brigade is up there.'

'And when do you suppose the War Department can tell me if
he is all

right? I want to know.'

'My dear senator -- frankly, I don't know. Again I beg you
to think of

our position -- the army in a muddle; its General thinking that
he must fall

back; and yet not sure that he can fall back without losing the
army. Why,

we're worrying about the lives of sixteen thousand men and the
self-respect